Thursday, March 31, 2011

General Electric versus the NSF

So, you may have seen the recent New York Times article about General Electric. Here are the key numbers: 14.2 billion dollars in profits globally in 2010, 5.1 billion of which came from the US; negative 3.2 billion in US taxes. That's right, not only did they pay no taxes, they claimed at 3.2 billion dollar tax benefit. That's billion, with a b.

Here's something to put that in perspective:


And, of course, there's the fact that Jeffrey Immelt, head of GE since Jack Welch stepped down, was appointed as the chair of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. What could possibly go wrong?

If you would like to embed this comic in your own blog, here's the URL: http://www.darwineatscake.com/img/comic/13.jpg

The best URL for sharing is: http://www.darwineatscake.com/?id=13

Or, to view the comic in its natural habitat, go here.

If you want to feel more outraged and depressed by this, I recommend Tom Scocca's post on the matter.

Sources:
G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether, David Kocieniewski, New York Times, March 24, 2011.
NSF budget numbers from LiveScience.

1 comment:

  1. I'm selfishly kind of ok with it because I own stock in General ELectric.
    Don't judge me.

    ReplyDelete